All Hope Lost (6 page)

“Don’t be stupid, I can’t be dead, I’m here.” She flung
her arms out to emphasise, but one eye twitched as though there was something
she couldn’t remember.

“How long have you been here, Mary?”

She suddenly looked sad. “I don’t know.” Her shoulders
slumped. “I remember my parents leaving, they were sad, crying.”

I nodded. “Sweetie, you died. I can only imagine how you
felt when they left you here.”

Mary began to wail, nurses in the vicinity, suddenly
hugging themselves against the deathly chill. “I just want my mum and dad. I
want them to come back, please!”

I realised at that moment that
she had kept herself here because of the shock of her sudden death. She was in
denial, or had been, and refused to leave, to move on. After so long, she had
forgotten the reason she was there, thinking herself alive, but not able to
leave.

“Mary.” I called her name. “Mary, look at me.” She
finally raised her head and stopped wailing. “I can see you because I am also
dead, and I think many of these wandering folks are too. You just refused to
believe it, and got yourself stuck. You have been here for more than twenty
years. It’s two-thousand and twelve.” I let the information settle for her. It
was a lot to take in after living, well, haunting the wards for so long in
denial.

“But what about my family?” she spoke in a small voice,
barely audible.

“Your family will always love you Mary, be you alive or
dead, that’s unconditional, and I’m sure they miss you as much as you miss
them. But this,” I gestured to the wards, “This cannot be what you want to do
for the rest of eternity. You can move on now.” I reached out to her and
touched her arm. Small tingles passed between us, my strange ghostly energy
sparking against this spirit. A question formed in my head. “Why are you still
here anyway? Why not go home?”

Mary shook her head, her
ghostly hair, wafting side to side. “I cannot. I am stuck here, to this ward. I
cannot leave the room, or go through the door, no matter how much I tried. In
the end I waited to be discharged. I guess I forgot I was dead after so long.”

I smiled at her, a softness to
my face to calm her. “You can go now, Mary.” She looked at me, eyes wide. She
looked as though she wanted to cry, but that was impossible. Instead, she
hugged me, wrapping her arms around me, head sunk into my shoulder. The effect
was strange; my body shimmered and felt her disappear. A tinkle of laughter
sounded far off, the echo of her “thank you” rang in my head.

Smiling I turned back to the
ward.
She couldn’t leave, yet I can go anywhere? Why?
I moved over to
another person and tried to talk to them. They didn’t answer, just stood
staring at the floor, leaning against the wall. I tilted my head to one side,
and took note of the shadow he was casting.
A live one, great.
Glancing
about the room, I could see the closest ward for emergencies nearby. There was
much movement going on, and from what I could tell, most movement was actually
from other ghosts, pacing the hall. Some saw me; others didn’t, moving in and
out of the living, through me, causing me to shimmer in response.

One spirit stared at me, and then drew closer. “You
cannot be here.” He spoke deeply, a slight echo catching behind his voice. It
was strange. My eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Why not?” I asked.

The spirit motioned to the
ward. “You are a danger to the still living here. Your kind cannot be here,
without consequence.”

“My kind? I don’t understand; I’m dead, like you?”

He blinked at me; his dead eyes were blank, which made
him very eerie to look at directly. “You are dead, yes. But not like me, or the
others.” He got closer and reached out to my right arm. His finger almost
touched me, but there was a tiny gap, yet the sparks that appeared within the
gap caused me to jump. “You are not a ghost like us. We have died from natural
causes, old age, or illness and disease. You died by other means, before your
time. You are a Daemon; you are here for a higher reason, for justice. But you
must not be here, you must leave.”

This new information crawled
down my spine and made me shiver.
It was true I was trying to get justice,
was that my purpose?
Considering a moment, I liked it. “But, I need to find
out how a young lady is doing. She is pregnant, and came in with glass
shattered in her hand. I am concerned for her unborn.”

The spirit before me nodded.
“Wait here, we can find out for you.” He spun and moved lithely across the
floor to the ward door. Another ghost listened from the other side as he passed
the message on and returned to me.

“We will find out shortly, the message is being carried
through the hospital to find her. It shouldn’t take long; there are many of us
here, in limbo.”

“Limbo?” I asked surprised. “Is that why you are still
here?”

The man shrugged, but
answered. “As for myself, I stayed here out of choice. I wasn’t ready to leave
when I died. I like to help others, so I try to help the new dead, to help them
move on.” He motioned to the ghosts that still walked the wards. “These though,
are too far gone to help, at least I cannot. They are completely gone in their
own minds. Who knows what life they are living now, but I will not deny them
that, I cannot.” He turned his head quickly back to the door and went to
receive the information from the other ghosts.

Returning to me, he spoke again, “It appears your girl is
up in a ward, she is getting a strong talking to by one of the maternity nurses
up there about her drinking and drugs taking, and what that is doing to her
unborn. It sounds as though the girl is up for having her child adopted once
born.” I nodded relief clear on my face.

“Adoption is the best solution for her and her child. She
is not fit to be a mother yet, if ever. She needs to sort herself out. At least
here, she has that help. I hope she takes it.”

The spirit before me nodded. “I understand, but is that
your decision to make?”

I was taken aback. “Well, I, I
only want what’s best for that child. Things will only get worse in our society
otherwise. After all, you said I’m here about justice, and this is part of it,
and I have begun with the unborn child of that messed up girl.” I folded my
arms across my chest.

The spirit stared at me for a
moment with those blank eyes. He nodded slowly. “I wish you luck with the
justice you will hand out and create,” then turned slowly and moved away from
me.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I
should do with the information I had been given yet, but for now, I was happy
to find out what had happened to the pregnant girl. Next, I wanted to find out
about my old neighbour from hell, and to see how they were coping tucked up in
a cold cell. I sped out of the hospital entrance and once again, carried myself
on the wind towards the local police building.

The police building was old,
built back in the eighteen hundreds, the hanging pole still fixed on the front
wall. I looked up, a body swinging from the noose. Blinking I stopped and
stared at it, like an idiot. The head looked down to me, a hand waving at me.
“Could you get me down?” it asked. I was so freaked out, I ran inside the
building.
Shit
I thought.
I’m dead but still freaked out. I can’t
leave him there though. What should I do?
I walked as calmly as I could
past the front desk and headed for the cells at the back of the building.
Walking past the guards, I headed through the metal door and into a corridor,
cell's either side. Their occupants mostly held my noisy neighbour and her
party goers. They were still clutching at the heads, some rocking back n forth,
others just crying. Shelby was one of those. I moved closer, causing my chill
to make her shiver. She looked about in a panic, and I made my form to come
into view for a few moments.
Now you see me, now you don’t
, I giggled as
I fluctuated in and out of view.

               
She whimpered as she stared at me. I laughed. The other inmates looked up at
me, and started screaming, causing the guard to bang on the door. “Quiet!” he
shouted, but they continued, and so he unlocked the door and walked into the
corridor, one hand on a night stick. “Oi, quiet I said!”

               
I appeared behind him so it made them all look in his direction and scream
again, even the other inmates joined in. As he turned around I disappeared
again. “You lot are messed up! Now quit it!”

“Make her go away, tell her to leave us alone!” one of
the party goers cried. “Take this music from my head, please, please, it’s
crazy!” The guard curled his lip in disgust.

“You lot need your heads lookin’ at. That or those drugs you
took were clearly spiked with something else.” He shook his head. “Now be
quiet!” He turned and left, leaving the stricken inmates to cry after him.

I decided to give them a
little more to think about, so I appeared inside one of the cells, the three men
inside, sucked in their breath and backed up against the wall, wide eyed. The
cell opposite that held the women looked on through their bars, watching,
whimpering. “Don’t hurt them, please, don’t. They did nothing wrong!” My face
spun to them, my eyes were burning black holes of nothing to them and I bore
into each of them. I smiled a grim smile, lips curling at the edges, showing no
laughter, but hell for them.  I made a deep laugh, my mouth opening wider
so all they could see was blackness within me.
I was going to scare the shit
out of them for what they did to me for two years. Oh yes, revenge is sweet.
I
forced my body to shimmer, and the air went cold, the breath from the inmates
showing as white fog from their mouths. “No, no, no, no” they started to
mumble.

               
My eyes locked with one, and I sped forwards straight into them. I stilled
inside him and felt his body convulse as the chill froze him from the inside. I
moved out again, my face inches from his. His eyes focused on me, his cell
mates had retreated to the other end of the cell shaking with fear. I vanished
before him and reappeared next to Shelby.
Time to make you pay for what you
did to me.
She screeched and fell to her knees; I moaned deeply, and she
covered her head with her arms, frightened. I reached out to her head with one
of my hands and sunk it into her brain, she convulsed violently. I wouldn’t
kill her, but harm her I would. I squeezed part of her brain matter and sent
shocks through it a little at a time. I sneered,
payback was fun
.
Shelby’s face contorted in horror as I set a memory to repeat in her dreams,
one of me, and her constant booming music, over and over. I left the background
bass to boom in her head as I did the others, she grabbed her head, and her
face fell slack down one side. She lost control of her bladder. Job done, I
released her, letting her fall sideways to the ground. I let out a piercing
scream for the rest of them to remember me by, and vanished just as the guard
returned to find Shelby passed out on the floor in her own piss.

Serves you all right
I
mused.
Now for the hanging corpse.
I made my way upstairs to the tower
where executions used to be held. The accused were tied here, one end on the
hangman, and they were pushed out the window here, left to hang and die. This
one though, appeared to be stuck. I walked out onto the narrow beam and knelt
down as best I could to reach the rope. It was tied well, too well, but I
couldn’t leave the man here for eternity, no matter what he had done in life
I’m sure he deserved to move on by now. I touched the rope with my fingers and
let out some of my energy in sparks at it, gradually cutting into it slowly.
“Brace yourself,” I shouted to the hanging man. The rope snapped, and the
corpse fell to the floor. I jumped off, slowing my decent to the ground.

“Thank you ma’am” he tipped his worn hat to me. “I dun
know how long I been there, but the view was getting mighty borin’” He started
to fade before me. “Thanks again miss.” He vanished.

I think that’s it for
tonight.
I felt drained again, though not as much as before. Rest would do
me good I decided. I hopped back on the wind train back to my former home, and
let myself in. I sighed, thinking of all I had achieved today, of all I had
learnt about who I was and what I had become. It frightened me a little
realising how much I had enjoyed torturing my hapless neighbours and her
friends,
but they deserved it, right?
I shook my head vigorously.
I
cannot think like this, I must not. What I did I felt was right, no second
guessing myself. I’m here for a reason, and I did it. I’m a Daemon. Or should
that be Demon? NO!
I started to doubt my actions.
Did they really
deserve what I just did to them? YES, NO, YES. Whatever I did, it is done now.
Do I feel better for it? I don’t know. It’s been a long day, maybe the answers
will come on the morrow?
I sunk down into one of the sofas, my mind going
over the day, and my intrusive damage to Shelby’s brain. I had no sympathy for
her, not after what she did for so long.
If she didn’t care then I shouldn’t
either.

Curling up, I rested my eyes, not entirely convinced.

Time slipped by quickly as I
waited for the dawn to arrive, the moon setting, and the sun rising. For all
the time I had lived, these were the things I had missed in life, simple, but
beautiful, the world spinning on. An alarm sounded, bringing me out of my
reverie, and the creaking of floorboards above informed me that the house
residents were waking up.